


Misfire

by fourletterwordsstartingwithl (hiddleston_loki_lover_au)



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Cute, Fluff and Crack, Fluffy, Jarvis being awesome, M/M, Mild Angst, Snarky Tony Stark, So I starting writing this and suddenly crack!fic happened, Tony's POV, an unlikely friendship, when arms attack!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 03:26:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6313552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiddleston_loki_lover_au/pseuds/fourletterwordsstartingwithl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky's arm malfunctions...</p><p>...Tony comes to the rescue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Misfire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Magicandmalice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magicandmalice/gifts).



> So, this was a birthday gift for [magic](http://archiveofourown.org/users/CoCoKrispies/) that kinda ended up shelved with my other WIP's over the Australian Summer while I had mild writer's block (read: existential crisis)... it began kinda dark, but I couldn't see myself writing from a perspective that I was unfamiliar with, so I scrapped the first draft.
> 
> Sassy Tony however...
> 
>  
> 
> Beta'ed by my sis, [MalfoyLover_1](http://www./archiveofourown.org/users/MalfoyLover_1/pseuds/MalfoyLover_1)

_“Sir, you are needed on level 6.”_

 

Tony continued to apply the soldering iron to the circuit board he was working on.  “JARVIS, I’m kind of in the middle of something here.”

 

_“Sir, I really must insist.”_

 

He huffed out a frustrated breath and closed his eyes.  Please, please, _please_ just let him get through the next 30 minutes.  He placed the soldering iron in its cradle before pinching the bridge of his nose.  He was almost finished figuring out the thruster issue on his suit.  Last week when they had been battling Doom, he had taken a hit and in the terrifying moments of his rapid descent towards terra-firma, Doom had slipped away.  The thrusters had been cutting out intermittently ever since and he just knew Fury was closing in on the villain – he needed to get this suit fixed.  Fast.  He had already worked through the night on it and was almost there - these were his last tiny adjustments before the final test run.

 

After that, he planned on crashing for at least a day or so… or until Fury called.  So, to put it mildly, this interruption was not exactly welcome.

 

“Is it Banner?  You know we already have protocols in place if he _hulks out_.”

 

_“No, it’s not Banner, sir.”_

 

Tony rolled his eyes as he began packing up his equipment.  “Is it everyone’s favourite blond bombshell?  Has he finally returned from the mothership, hopefully sans his sociopathic brother?”

 

_“No sir, Thor has not returned from Asgard.”_

 

“What about our resident master assassins?  Why aren’t they on top of whatever… _this_ is?”

 

_“Agents Romanoff and Barton are both currently on assignment, location classified.”_

 

“Classified?  You mean you don’t know?”

 

_“Of course I know, sir.”_

 

_Oh, of course._

 

Tony finished wiping his hands on a nearby towel before striding over to the elevator.  “Well then, I guess I’ll have to be the grown up and sort out whatever it is that needs sorting out.”  After the doors closed and the car began ascending, Tony whipped out his phone and shot a quick message to Pepper reminding her that it was her idea the Avengers stay in Stark Tower and that she should be the one to deal with this.

 

_It was only 12% my idea and I’m busy running your company, so suck it up. Love you, see you tonight x P_

 

He smiled and pocketed his phone, leaning back against the wall trying to figure out who would be causing this.  JARVIS said it wasn’t Bruce and that Thor was still in Asgard.  Natasha and Clint were not here, so that only left Steve… or Bucky.

 

Tony frowned.

 

Bucky was their newest member.  Well, not officially.  _Officially_ , SHIELD was currently turning a blind eye to his existence because ever since he defected from HYDRA, he has done nothing but cooperate and provide them with as much Intel as possible – their mind-wiping technology was slowly disintegrating as more and more information leaked into his conscious mind.  Much to Tony’s disappointment, Steve negotiated and landed Bucky a temporary stay from prosecution, as long as he was confined within the Avengers Tower and remained under the watchful guidance of one Captain Steve Rogers.

 

It’s not that Tony didn’t like Bucky.  He was actually Tony’s kind of guy; quiet, stoic, enjoyed a smooth single malt.  It was his effect on Steve that Tony was most uncomfortable with.

 

Steve was always his go-to guy for moral judgement.  Tony’s compass had smashed years ago, so he sometimes let himself defer to Steve when their battles took a more ambiguous turn.  Bucky’s presence was destroying their close-knit little family.

 

Steve would now more often than not be found spotting Bucky down in the tower’s gym, or sitting in one of the large communal living spaces, pretending to read a book while actually watching Bucky sit at a nearby table as he wrote in the journal one of the doctors had given him to write down as many memories as they filtered through.  Bucky too was found to watch Steve when he thought no one was watching.  However, as Tony had pointed out to everyone on more than one occasion – you were always watched in the Avengers Tower.

 

Where Steve had been assertive in tactical planning for their missions, Tony now found him taking a measured approach, spending time talking with Bucky in hushed whispers before coming back with plans and contingencies that were less like the Captain Tony knew and more like the Captain of old.

 

Tony thought Fury would disallow Bucky’s input and although true to a certain extent – Bucky was not allowed to join them for debriefing - he wasn’t averse to hearing Steve out with suggestions that although were coming from the Captain, were the words of Bucky, spoken with Steve’s tongue.

 

And well… Tony didn’t like change.  Much.

 

More than certain now of who is causing the disturbance, Tony played with the bracelets on his wrists, wondering if he’ll need to call on Mark VII for back up to fight The Winter Soldier.

 

Bucky Barnes hadn’t been the asset for all those years for nothing – he was a skilled fighter.  Tony had watched him hold his own quite well against Steve when they had sparred.  Even Natasha had taken him on.  She had barely over powered him, even after ten solid minutes of fighting.  They had ended up lying side-by-side on the mats, both breathing hard.  Tony stood watching from the side, a cup of espresso in his hand while his shrewd eyes took everything in.  Bucky has supposedly lost the bout, but his body language read differently.

 

The elevator slowed and the doors opened to reveal shouting and a somewhat tense stand-off between Steve, Bucky and Banner.  Immediately Tony stepped off the elevator.  “Wait, wait, wait… what’s going on?”

 

Bruce and Steve were standing with guarded body language, hands up in a placating, almost pleading manner.  Bruce’s face was pale with… something akin to fear, but Tony knew he was barely holding on.  Steve’s face wasn’t so much pale as it was apologetic.  Tony turned and saw Bucky in a half-crouch, clutching his head with his flesh hand, wincing in pain.  His other arm however was holding the stainless steel door to their refrigerator, the sheet of metal ripped from its hinges and crumpled in the hard grip of the metal appendage.

 

Tony looked over and… yep.  There was their brand new state-of-the-art fridge, without its brand new state-of-the-art door!

 

“Well shit, I just had that installed,” He sighed.

 

Bruce visibly relaxed at the arrival of Tony and began slowly walking backwards away from Bucky and Steve.  “I need t-to.”

 

“Yeah Bruce, go… sorry,” Steve called out over his shoulder as the quiet doctor made his exit.

 

Now it was just Steve, Tony and Bucky.

 

Trying to keep his voice as light and non-threatening as possible, Tony took a step towards the other two.  “Hey buddy, what seems to be the problem?  Other than destroying my brand new fridge?  I mean, I hope you’re okay an’ all, but I really liked that fridge - it had an ice dispenser on the front and everything.”

 

Bucky didn’t look up from where he was, but Tony swore he saw his fingers loosen their hold on his hair.

 

“ _Really_ Tony?  My best friend is in pain and you’re cracking jokes?”  Steve hissed.

 

Tony raised his hand to tell Steve to stop when Bucky suddenly stumbled back, the metal door groaning as his arm clamped down harder.  “Get out.”  His voice all but a whisper.

 

“Buck?”

 

“I said get out.  You need to get away from me.”

 

Tony watched the pain appear on Steve’s face clear as day as he realised the gravity of Bucky’s words.  His best friend, one he had fought for so hard was telling him to leave.  It broke Tony’s heart too, after seeing Steve happier than he had been for the entire time he had known the soldier.  The moment he had found Bucky again, he was lighter and not so weighed down with having to be infallible.

 

Tony kept his body face-on with Bucky, but turned his eyes to the blonde.  “Steve, it’s cool. I’ll take good care of Bucky.”

 

He had no idea how he was going to do that exactly.  He was without his suit and about to take on a highly stressed and anxious assassin, one he knew could rip his throat out before Tony could draw another breath.  However, as he watched the situation before him, he was more inclined to believe his gut – Bucky Barnes had no intention of hurting anyone… well, unless he was provoked.

 

How Tony was going to diffuse the situation however – well, that was an entirely different set of problems.  He guessed he would just have to wing it.

 

“I mean it, Steve.  You need to leave.  Clearly your presence is upsetting to our friend here, so until I get the situation under control, I think you should just give us some space.  Head down to the gym and wipe out a few punching bags.”

 

A few more seconds passed while Steve was clearly debating with himself whether to take Tony’s word at face value.  He took a tentative step towards Bucky, who stumbled back again, the metal door groaning under fresh pressure.  “Buck, I-I’ll go, but you’re… well hell, you’re important to me, okay?  So just be sure this is what you want, yeah?”

 

Tony watched several expressions pass over Bucky’s face, his usual stoicism nowhere to be seen.  Pride, fear, helplessness and quite unsurprising to Tony, love.

 

“I know, but Stevie, you need to get out of here for a bit.”

 

A couple of seconds more.  Then Steve sighed and after meeting Tony’s eyes with a clear message of ‘hurt him and I hurt you’, he began striding over to the elevator.

 

Tony turned back to Bucky and watched him fall to his knees with a shuddering sigh.  Tony had seen men break before – the superhero business was not all bravery and machismo after all, but the moment the elevator doors closed, the fridge door fell away with a resounding boom against the tiled floor and Tony felt his own heart wrench away as the man they had called The Asset for so long began to weep.

 

~

 

Tony had Bucky lay down on the raised platform before punching a few commands into the screen beside them.  “When did you notice it begin to malfunction?”  He walked over to begin examining the arm, noticing then the slight sheen of sweat across Bucky’s brow and the flush of colour in his cheeks.  “JARVIS, run a scan on the bio-mechanical arm.  Include a breakdown of his stats too.  Heart rate, blood pressure, adrenal levels, the full enchilada.”

 

“About three days ago.”

 

“Three days?  And you didn’t think we needed to know?”

 

“I-I…”

 

Tony waved him off and began tapping commands into the small tablet in his hand.  “What were you doing at the time it malfunctioned?”

 

“We had b-been, I mean we were sparring.”

 

“Sparring?  With Steve?”

 

Bucky nodded and stared up at the ceiling, his face a mask once more.

 

“Was he injured?  Did he notice?  What exactly happened?”

 

“W-we had finished sparring, I mean.”

 

“So you were no longer sparring?”

 

A nod.  “So you were resting?”  A shake.  “C’mon bud, you gotta give me something here.”

 

“We were showering.”

 

Tony nodded and continued to type.  “Aaaand?”

 

“And that’s it.  We were showering and suddenly my arm seized up and I couldn’t get it to release.”

 

“Release what?  What were you holding?”

 

Bucky gave Tony a withering stare before rolling his eyes.  “My bottle of shampoo.”

 

“ _What_?  You can’t blame me for asking.  I mean, having a death grip on your little winter soldier could’ve been disastrous.”

 

Bucky closed his eyes and Tony watched him mouth the numbers one through ten.  “Do you take anything seriously?”

 

Tony chuckled and put the tablet down and instead swiped over JARVIS’s diagnostics screen, floating it in front of the gurney.  “Actually, I’ve been deliberately obtuse to piss you off.  How was that spectrum, JARVIS?”

 

_“Perfect Sir, you really knew how to elevate his epinephrine levels.  However, they have remained well within the ‘normal’ range and have not effected the bio-mechanical weapon at all.”_

 

Tony harrumphed and pulled up a small stool on caster wheels before picking up the arm to examine it closer.  “So anger didn’t set it off.  Clearly your resting heartrate and dopamine levels are our control factor.  What about fear?  Fight or flight response.  JARVIS, what do you think?”

 

_“Sir, my scans indicate no response.”_

 

Tony fiddled with the casing a little more before he motioned to Bucky to adjust the flanges.  With a quick whirr, the multiple plates rolling seamlessly to the side, allowing Tony to see the wires and boards housed within.  He of course had seen technology as advanced as this is his own lab, not twenty feet from where they stood, but to see it harnessed so seamlessly outside of Stark Industries made him a little envious of its maker.  He could see where it had been graphed onto his organic body and he simply marvelled at the beautiful complexity of it.

 

He hummed and sat back to reach for his tablet, letting the arm return to Bucky’s side.  He flicked his eyes to the camera in the corner of the room for a brief moment before looking down at the screen.  He was about to do something either amazingly ingenious or something incredibly stupid.  With a quick huff, he raised his face and regarded Bucky’s currently impassive face with an arched eyebrow.  “So, how long _have_ you been in love with Steve?”

 

Turned out, his plan was a little of both.  Amazingly ingenious because the moment he asked the question, Bucky gasped and his arm flailed wildly outwards, confirming Tony’s suspicion and locating the source of the glitch.  Incredibly stupid because without his suit to protect him, he took a full swinging arc of the metal arm to his chest, throwing him across the room and crashing into his work bench.

 

“The hell was that?”  Bucky growled from the gurney he suddenly found himself tied to with metal cuffs around his waist, thighs and ankles, not unlike those used by Hydra during his numerous mind-wipes.

 

Tony stood up and brushed himself off, checking himself for broken bones (thankfully none) and hissing at the nasty graze on his forearm where a bruise was going to spread within minutes, he was certain.  “Do you deny it?”

 

“Deny what?”

 

“That you’re all eye-batting, blush-inducing, heart-warmingly in _lurve_ with Steve Rogers.”

 

Tony rolled his head to stretch out his neck and shoulders, trying to walk off how battered he really felt from taking that hit as he continued to watch Bucky’s arm flail wildly.  “JARVIS, run a scan on his endocrine system and reconfigure the weapon’s program to compensate for increases to his serotonin and oxytocin levels.”

 

_“Ahh yes sir, analysis shows greatly compromised data spikes.  Realigning levels now.”_

 

Within seconds, the flailing ceased and his metal arm fell to his side once more.

 

Tony made his way over to the slab and after pressing a few buttons watched as it raised Bucky to a vertical position before the cuffs pulled away and zipped back inside the gurney’s frame.

 

“What was all that about?”  Bucky asked in a low voice, rubbing absently at his wrists before stepping down off the slab.  Tony smiled, trying to reign in the smugness of his discovery.  Jesus, he was good!

 

“Oh that?  That was me getting it right once again.”  With another blinding smile, he pressed an index finger into Bucky’s chest none too gently.  “You, my brooding friend are in love with our dear sweet Captain.”

 

Bucky scoffed and ran his flesh hand through his hair.  “I am not!  Where did you get t-that idea…?”

 

“Well, apart from the obvious malfunctions,” he punctuated with a wave of his hand.  “There are the other signs.  The blushing, the staring, the vehement denial that seems sorta half-assed, to be perfectly honest.”

 

“My feelings for Steve were what was causing the arm to malfunction?”

 

The buzz of having Bucky actually admit it in so many words – aware he had or not, had Tony grinning inwardly.  “Poetic, I know,” he laughed, clapping Bucky on the shoulder and leading him out of the lab towards the elevator.  “Hydra used you for years as an assassin, not needing you to be more than a walking loaded gun.  A _thug_ , if you will.”

 

The small growl that escaped Bucky’s throat was not missed by Tony as they entered the elevator car together.  Maybe he should ease up and not provoke the skilled soldier standing beside him within such a confined area.  He scoffed at the thought – when had Tony Stark ever taken the safe road?

 

“Hydra’s continued use of you for their nefarious schemes was a plan without thought.  You were their tool – an asset of almost unlimited potential, but essentially a robot.  Your emotional sense of self had been deactivated, disused, dormant.  When they calibrated your arm, those systems were not active within your chemical makeup and thus no parameters had been set.”

 

“And then I defected…”

 

“…aahhhh would you say defected?”

 

“You deny my return to Steve’s side as anything but honourable?”

 

Tony held up his hands.  “Hey, calm down there, Black Parade.  I didn’t mean anything by it.”

 

“Black Parade—?“

 

Tony brushed his question off with a wave before continuing.  “…and so when you returned – _to Steve’s side_ – as you so put it, previously dormant aspects of your psyche were awakened and thus Arm-Gate was born.”

 

“You are not making much sense.”

 

Tony sighed.  “Your huge boner for Steve was causing your arm to go haywire because your serotonin and oxytocin levels had not been calibrated by Hydra.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Oh indeed.”

 

The elevator suddenly stopped and the doors opened to the basement level.  Through the glass inner doors, they could see Steve taking out his frustrations on a punching bag.  Tony placed a gentle hand on Bucky’s shoulder.  “Tell him.  I can, without a doubt guarantee Steve feels the same way you do.”

 

And then Tony pushed him out of the elevator.

 

“Tell him, you dumb shit.  Get your groove on, screw your brains out, and declare your undying love for one another.  Whatever you need to do to get it out of your system and settle your feelings once and for all.  Just leave me out of it.”

 

Bucky looked back at Tony with panicked eyes just as the doors closed.

 

As the car ascended back to his lab, Tony sighed and leant back against the rail.  “Honestly JARVIS, I feel like their fucking mother.”

 

_“You handled it as only you could, sir.”_

 

“With class?”

 

_“Not exactly, sir.”_

 

~

 

The next morning, Tony dragged his catatonic ass to the kitchen, mumbling incoherently as he grabbed the coffee pot from the machine and poured himself a cup.  He had finally finished the repairs to the suit and was only up long enough to get some coffee into his system, maybe some food before returning to crash for the rest of the day.  After the first few sips bled into his very sub-conscious, he ventured opening his eyes wider to take in everyone assembled in the kitchen/dining area.  Bruce was sitting at the table chewing thoughtfully on a piece of toast while reading from a large book he had propped up against a stack of plates.

 

Bucky was sitting stock still at the other end, staring down at his empty plate.  His face bore the expression of someone in shock.  Maybe awe?  Tony smirked and turned to watch Steve walk slowly over to where the stack of pancakes sat on the side bench.  He was limping, that much was certain, but it wasn’t until he reached up to get a glass from the high cupboard that Tony glimpsed the tell-tale marks of finger-shaped bruises along Steve’s hips where his shirt rode up.

 

His eyes darted instantly over to Bucky who was now looking back at him, a faint blush colouring his cheeks.  “It malfunctioned again?”

 

“Uhhh… no.”

 

_…oh._

 

Tony smiled and sipped his coffee.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Belated Birthday, Magic xx
> 
>  
> 
> [my tumblr](http://www.fourletterwordsstartingwithl.tumblr.com)


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